HITTING ITS STRIDE
After the initial fanfare, institutional follow-up proved feeble. Initially Zahavi believed that a university student working part time should be able to coordinate the Society's activities satisfactorily. After two or three were fired for poor performance, he saw that his expectations for the job were far greater than he had originally recognized.[29] Azariah Alon, however, was busy teach-ing in the Harod Valley, and Zahavi himself, committed to scientific research, left for a year of advanced study in London for much of 1955. Abraham “Boomi” Toran, a beloved but eccentric teacher from Kibbutz Mabarot, received a year's sabbatical from his responsibilities on the kibbutz to run the organization from Tel Aviv. Yet he lacked the connections and administrative savvy that the unknown fledgling Society needed.
When Zahavi returned from his studies in August of 1955, he found an ailing organization. Boomi Toran had to return to his kibbutz responsibil-ities. No budget had been generated, membership was still marginal, and a replacement for Boomi was nowhere in sight. The SPNI was on the verge of disappearing.[30] Reluctantly Zahavi made a three-year commit-ment to delay his doctoral research, a delay that would stretch on for fifteen more years.
Professor Mendelssohn was again the coconspirator who would revive the organization. These were the early days of Tel Aviv University. As a prestigious zoologist who had thrown his lot in with the school, Mendelssohn was well situated. By the end of 1956, the Society was still without financial resources, and Zahavi had no money of his own left to bankroll his work. Mendelssohn, who never tried to rein Zahavi in, agreed to an “outrageous” idea he proposed: He put Zahavi on the university payroll
An unprecedented membership campaign began. Later Zahavi would joke that he had no friends left after pressuring them all to pay SPNI dues. If so, he must have started with quite a few. Within three years, five thou-sand people would join the Society.[31] Newspapers offered free publicity in return for a column on nature preservation.[32] When Azariah Alon began appearing weekly on the country's only radio station in 1955, word got out. The simple mission of preserving the birds, trees, flowers, and vistas that the first Israelis had come to love resonated in the young, idealistic country. The SPNI served as an institutional outlet for the “pantheistic Sabra” who was raised on devotion to the natural world. And although po-litical leaders may have found some of their demands annoying, they could not help but admire the young idealists as representing the best of the Zionist dream.
The role of the kibbutz movement in shaping the SPNI's institutional culture during the early days cannot be overemphasized.[33] The organization had a clear hierarchy but socially was classless. Professors mingled with farmers and high-school students. At the same time, as a group it was elit-ist. Just as the kibbutz of those days eschewed titles such as “Director,” the organization was headed by a “Secretary” with its more egalitarian conno-tation. Its members were knowledgeable but decidedly not intellectuals.
The intermingling of the kibbutz with organizational norms had other implications. For instance, the Society resisted being run like a business for years and therefore was perennially in debt. The SPNI still does not offer bonuses for exceptional performance. Benny Shalmon, an SPNI scientist-guide for thirty years, believes that this might be one of the causes for the high turnover rate among the more talented employees.
Amotz Zahavi consulted with experts but made most of the key calls himself. From its inception, he led the SPNI on an aggressive, uncharted path to protect nature and natural resources. Decisions were pragmatic, and Zahavi would cut an imperfect deal if there was no better deal to be had. Yet, given the spirit of the times and the economic conditions in the young State, Zahavi and his crew were also remarkably uncompromising in pur-suing their agenda. Urieh Ben Yisrael, an early SPNI worker, recalls a director of an immigrant camp in Beit Shemesh who came to him in tears. “He said that if we opposed the development of a local quarry, there would be unemployment and suffering there. As in all matters,Amotz was the last word, but he ruled that we were to continue to fight the quarry: ‘The peo-ple in the camp will ultimately be taken care of. Nature won't be.’”[34]